Jonathan D. Riddle

Can't wait to talk FIT NATION at Pepperdine! Join us IRL in Malibu on Tuesday for my public talk!

I'm so excited to welcome @nataliapetrzela.bsky.social to campus next week to help launch our new minor!

The lecture is open to the public, so feel free to join if you're in the area! You can buy her book while here, too.

The ongoing fight to replace racist monuments in the US: ‘requires a lot of perseverance’ Since a reckoning brought awareness to problematic statues across the country, the road to replacing them has been slow and arduous

What was supposed to take one year has now taken five years (and counting) due to various obstacles.

But artist Vinnie Bagwell is still proceeding with plans to install her "Victory" statue where James Marion Sims's statue once stood. #histmed 🗃️

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Jillian Michaels Backs RFK Jr.’s Health Movement - NewsBreak Fitness trainer Jillian Michaels has supported Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement. She

Famous trainer Jillian Michaels announces support for MAHA:

“[What] we’re not going to get from the government, you can create in your own life by taking agency.”

My book on c19 health reform explores how agency became the watchword in US health. #histmed 🗃️

www.newsbreak.com/the-kansas-c...

The World's Richest Woman Has Opened a Medical School The Alice L. Walton School of Medicine is trying a new approach to medical education.

“The foundation [of the curriculum] is traditional medicine but enhanced with the humanities and the arts to improve the delivery of care—so we improve on how we [act] with patients and how we partner with patients,” says Makhija.

#histmed

time.com/7303692/alic...

This is more than I expected!

Now we need a post about how subfields use the same design language and fonts (especially Civil War studies). I'm assuming that's intentional by presses?

Mayo Clinic refused employee's COVID-19 vaccine exemption request, lawsuit says A lawsuit filed Thursday alleges the Mayo Clinic violated federal law when it refused a security guard's request to be exempt from getting the COVID-19 vaccine because of his religious beliefs.

The EEOC is suing the Mayo Clinic for refusing an employee's request for a religious exemption to their vaccine mandate.

It gets less fanfare these days, but folks are still processing and fighting over pandemic issues like mandates, religious liberty, etc.

www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/ne...

Something akin to the way Emily K. Abel's article on the Gillespies reveals so much about women and caregiving in the home in the nineteenth-century US. It's great and teachable.

Do any of you brilliant #histmed teachers know of a nice narrative introduction to early nineteenth-century medicine? Something like a case study of a doctor or a patient? I'm looking for something for undergraduates.

I have a separate story for medicine and slavery.🗃️

"So once you’re equipped with information, your next stop is the app store on your phone. There’s an app for every landmark on your journey. Just accept the terms, download, and follow the prompts. And stay alert to the health news filling your inbox. It is on you to journey safely, and older advice can lead you straight off a cliff."

On the fiction that we're in total control of our health.

Building on Nancy Tomes's history of patients becoming savvy consumers. #histmed 🗃️

hedgehogreview.com/issues/after...

I'm so sorry to hear this. How terribly cruel.

Opinion | The Unrepentant Return of Christian Diet Culture

Just like Christian bodybuilding, Christian diet culture abides.

I would just add that its history stretches further back than the 1970s and Oral Roberts. In fact, I'm writing about its manifestation in the 1830s! 🗃️
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/o...

Faith, Fitness, and the New Gospel of #Gains: Inside the Conflicted World of Christian Bodybuilders Christian bodybuilders and fitfluencers are ascending to greater heights of visibility—and facing compelling questions about lust, idolatry, and purpose.

American Christians have been blending bodybuilding and faith for more than a century. Here's a check-in with how they're faring these days, with insights from @paulputz.bsky.social. 🗃️

www.menshealth.com/fitness/a651...

Big news for #skystorians 🗃️: Zotero now supports CMOS 18.

Taming Manhattan — Harvard University Press George Perkins Marsh Prize, American Society for Environmental HistoryVSNY Book Award, New York Metropolitan Chapter of the Victorian Society in AmericaHornblower Award for a First Book, New York Soci...

@catherinemcneur.bsky.social talks about the pigs that roamed the streets of nineteenth-century NYC in *Taming Manhattan.* www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...

Post-COVID, church-shifting has created more ideological agreement – Baptist News Global The COVID pandemic facilitated a greater sorting of churchgoers into more ideological groups than before

A new survey shows that "congregation switching and ideological sorting" have increased among church-goers since the pandemic.

Is this just a correlation, or did pandemic-inspired reflection cause people to make a change in their religious lives? baptistnews.com/article/post...

Based on how useful *The Book Proposal Book* was for me, I'm very much looking forward to this one!

Even better, it's part of a cluster hire.

#histmed 🗃️ job!

jobs.hr.txstate.edu/postings/53214

Is anyone working on the history of homeopathy? Or do you know scholars who have written about homeopathy recently? I could use some help... #histmed 🗃️

Understood! Thanks again for the recommendation.

I just ordered it! I've previously assigned Washington's *Medical Apartheid* for this perspective. How do you think they compare?

I'm currently spamming my ILL librarian. Thank you!

Will investigate! Thank you.

Previously, I've used an excerpt from Robert A. Hahn, *Sickness and Healing: An Anthropological Perspective.* It helps show the importance of forces beyond the body itself, including the social and psychosomatic. But it didn't quite do the trick. Too anthropological, I guess!

Yeah, sorry about: I'm teaching the history of health and medicine in the US, so examples from that context would work best.

Right! I mean, this is one of the main goals of the course (history of health and medicine in the US). So I hope they get it in the end. But I'm just hoping to start with something quick and evocative, like "consumption was chic but people shamed AIDS patients: why?"

I'm teaching the history of health and medicine in the US (or the lands that became the US), so something North American suits me best. But I think I'd use something further afield if it did the trick.

#histmed #skystorians: Do you have a favorite reading for introducing students to the *historical* nature of health and medicine?

i.e. It's not just the march of science, but context matters.

I find great snippets here and there, but I'm looking for a standalone reading. Case studies welcome. 🗃️

Oh, that could be it! I wish the writer had crossed the t so I could be sure.

The third letter could also be a u? Hard to know as As are sometimes closed, sometimes open in the document.